“We live in a society where the emotional experience of “love” is conditional on behavior. Where fear, guilt, and shame are used to try to control children’s behavior because parents believe that their children’s behavior reflects their self-worth. . . . . . .

In a Codependent society we are taught, in the name of “love,” to try to control those we love, by manipulating and shaming them, to try to get them to do the right things – in order to protect our own ego-strength. Our emotional experience of love is of something controlling: ‘I love you if you do what I want you to do.” Our emotional experience of love is of something that is shaming and manipulative and abusive.

Love that is shaming and abusive is an insane, ridiculous concept. Just as insane and ridiculous as the concept of murder and war in the name of God.”

“What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive because it is emotionally dishonest. Children learn who they are as emotional beings from the role modeling of their parents. “Do as I say – not as I do,” does not work with children. Emotionally dishonest parents cannot be emotionally healthy role models, and cannot provide healthy parenting.

Our model for what a family should be sets up abusive, emotionally dishonest dynamics.”

“When we say “I have to” we are making a victim statement. . . . . . . When we “have to” do something we feel like a victim. And because we feel victimized, we will then be angry, and want to punish, whomever we see as forcing us to do something we do not want to do – such as our family, or our boss, or society.””

In last month’s article I talked about shutting up the critical parent voice – and mentioned that among the messages that are coming from the critical parent are “shoulds” and “have tos.” In last months articles I started with the quote from my book about saying “have to” – and then went into different ways we express ourselves in relationship to our emotions that affect our relationship with our own emotions.

I decided that for this months topic I would discuss the “shoulds” and “have tos” in more depth, in relationship to setting ourselves up to feel like victims at this time of year. In my article Happy Holidays, Sad Holidays that I republished at the beginning of this month, I talk about how trying to live up to the fairy tale / fantasy that everyone is happy and cheerful at Christmas time – and judging myself for not feeling what I thought I “should” – caused me to feel depressed and suicidal during the Holiday Season. This is the time of year when the most suicides occur – because people are feeling despair that their lives aren’t what they “should” be.

It is so important to take the “shoulds” and “have tos” out of our vocabulary – both externally and internally in our mental process. “Should” and “have to” come from the critical parent voice in our head that is judging us according to false criteria from a black and white / right and wrong perspective – and we learned that programming from our parents in our family of origin (as well as from teachers in school, ministers and priests in church, etc., etc.).

You don’t “have to” spend the Holidays with your family. If you are going to spend time with your family over the Holidays because it is what you “should” do, what you “have to” do – then you are set up to feel like a victim and feel resentment. Feeling resentful and victimized is not a good ingredient to add to the Holiday emotional mix if you want to connect with some of the Spirit of Love that the Holiday Season is supposed to represent.

As I point out often in my writing, one of the major components of empowerment is owning that we have a choice. Unless you own that you have a choice to not spend time with your family during the Holidays, then you haven’t made a free choice to be there. Anytime we feel stuck in a situation, feel that we don’t have a choice – to leave a marriage or a job, to do something or not do something – we have not made a choice to stay. It is impossible to consciously commit to something if we don’t own that we have a choice not to do it.

So, if you spend time with your family during the Holidays because you “have to,” you are not being Loving. You are not being kind, you are not giving anything, unless you are doing it by conscious choice – which involves owning that you have a choice to not do it.

The other major component of empowerment is seeing reality as it is and making the best of it – instead of being the victim of it, wishing it was different, thinking it “should” be different. This includes seeing the reality of our families clearly. The families we grew up in were dysfunctional and emotionally dishonest because society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional. (In the latest chapter of the online book I am publishing on my web site right now, I discuss why normal is dysfunctional and how the conditions that caused that have changed in recent years. Normal Families are Dysfunctional)

We grew up in families / societies where our experience of love was shaming and controlling, because that is all our codependent parents knew – due to their childhood wounding. Unless our families are in recovery from codependency then their behavior is still manipulative and shaming. They want us to be there for the Holidays to support their ego image of themselves as parents – their fantasy about having a happy family that gathers lovingly for the Holidays.

Love is a verb. Love is defined by action. If the way someone treats you does not feel Loving, then it is not healthy Love. If the way your family treats you, if the way you feel when you are with them, does not feel Loving, it is important not to deny that reality. That is one reason why the Holidays are sad for many people. It is important to see that reality and own that sadness – instead of denying and rationalizing. Denying our feelings is harmful to us. It is not healthy.

When you look at their behavior and recognize the dishonesty and dysfunction, then you can also recognize that they are doing the best they can do. You can know they are not in recovery, may never be in recovery – and that they think they are demonstrating love when they use guilt and shame to try to get you to uphold their fantasy about the Holidays.

Once you recognize the reality and own that you have a choice, then you can make a choice to spend some time with them out of kindness. You can then make a choice that is Truly Loving, that is Truly giving.

And you can set boundaries with them that are Loving for you. There are not just two choices – the black and white extremes of the disease – there are choices in between 1 and 10. You can make a choice to spend some time with them, but limit the time so that you are not subjected to the dysfunction for too long.

One of my phone counseling clients yesterday shared with me a perfect example of making this kind of choice. In the past few years she had chosen not to be with her family because it was so painful. This year she was choosing to spend some time with them, with a very distinct boundary in place. Her boundary was that they would not start drinking until the evening, and that she would leave when they started drinking. In this way, she was taking care of herself and her family by not putting up with too much of the dysfunctional behavior of her family of origin.

Love is a choice. When we “have to” we are not making a choice, and not being Truly Loving. The most Loving thing we can do for ourselves in this emotionally charged time of the year is to see reality clearly and own our choices in deciding the best way to celebrate the Holiday. We can best honor the message of Love that Christmas symbolizes by being Loving to our self. (Which of course includes not judging yourself if you are spending time with them this year out of belief in “have to.” We need to become aware that it is okay to own our choices before we can make a choice. If this article is presenting you with a new concept, it is important not to judge yourself for your programming, for your codependency.)

“The Universal Creative Force, as I understand it, is the energy field of ALL THAT IS vibrating at the frequency of Absolute Harmony. That vibrational frequency I call LOVE. (LOVE is the vibrational frequency of God; Love is an energy vibration within The Illusion which we can access; love is, in our Codependent culture, most often an addiction or an excuse for dysfunctional behavior.)

LOVE is the energy frequency of Absolute Harmony because it is the vibrational frequency where there is no separation.

Energy moves in wave-like patterns; what enables movement is the separation between the valley of the wave and its peak. The distance from peak to peak is called it’s wavelength. It is a law of physics that as vibrational frequency rises, as it gets higher, the wavelength gets shorter. The frequency of LOVE is the vibrational frequency where wavelength disappears, where separation disappears.

It is a place of absolute Peace, motionless, timeless, completely at rest: The Eternal Now.

The Peace and Bliss of The Eternal Now is the True Absolute Reality of the God-Force.”

What is Love? That is the question. I have been quite balled up the last week in attempting to write this column. No, that is not quite true – I have been unable to get into a space to even attempt to write this column. I need to get into a certain space – need to be feeling a special kind of creative energy – to write about a topic such as this. It was much easier to write last month’s column about “what Love is not.” Then I was writing about something much more concrete, much more black and white (the irony of this – since one of the characteristics of the disease is black and white thinking – is fodder for a completely different column.) The dynamics of the disease and the wounding process are very clear in my eyes. I have experienced the type of love that is shaming, abusive, manipulative, smothering, intrusive, addictive, etc., my whole life.

In fact, I learned a new word while writing this column. As I was composing the above paragraph, and taking note of how much easier it was to write last month’s column, the word empirical came to mind.

So, I did what comes naturally when a word pops to mind – I looked it up.

empirical 1. Relating to or based on experience or observation. 2. Relying entirely or to excess upon direct, repeated, and uncritically accepted experience: opposed to metempirical.

Aha, a new word.

metempirical 1. Lying beyond the bounds of experience, as intuitive principles; not derived from experience; transcendental.

So, even though I just said that it was easier to write ‘what Love is not’ because of my experience – in Truth when I say that Love is not shaming and abusive, I am actually stating my intuitive Truth. If I were just relying on my experience, I would say “love is shaming and abusive and controlling,” “love is being responsible for other people’s feelings and well being,” etc. – and that would be the Truth about love with a small l. When I say Love is not shaming, I am talking about the True Nature of Love as I intuitively understand it. Once I started to awaken to the reality that civilized society on this planet was based upon some false beliefs, then I started to be able to validate my intuitive feeling that something was dreadfully wrong here. I Knew deep inside, from a very young age, that this was not my home. I Knew that Love, if it was really such a wonderful thing, should not be so painful – just as I Knew it was ridiculous for both sides in a war to think that God was on their side and would help them kill the enemy.

Love that is Freedom

I could feel that Love must be something much greater than I had learned growing up. If Love is so wonderful, if Love is the answer – then Love should set us Free. That is what is coming up as I write this column – Love that is Freedom. Love that is Joy. Love that is the only Truth that has ever mattered.

Love that is Freedom – what does that mean? To me it means the Freedom to be OK with being me. The Freedom to relax and enJoy the moment. The Freedom to be – just be, without having to strive, to work for, to try to reach, to prove myself, to earn Love, to get “there.”

It means: Freedom from shame. Freedom from judgment. Freedom from loneliness. Freedom from feeling separate, different, not a part of, not acceptable. Freedom from the endless, aching longing for something more. Freedom from the hole in my soul – from the bottomless abyss of pain and shame and sadness that I feel at the core of my being.

This place is not my home. When I yearn for Love, I am longing to go home.

“I was ‘transported with Joy’, and my ‘spirit was soaring’, as I danced on the rock. And in my dancing and singing I Truly understood what those expressions meant. For in being ‘transported’ and ‘soaring’ I was merely tuning into the vibrational frequency that is Joy and Love and Truth. I could see clearly now how human beings throughout history had been trying to tune into Love. The primal urge that has caused humans to attempt to ‘alter their consciousness’, through drugs or religion or food or meditation or whatever, is no more than an attempt to raise one’s vibrational frequency. All any soul in body has ever done is to try to return home to God – we were just doing it all backwards because of the reversity of the planets energy field.” – The Dance of The Wounded Souls Trilogy Book 1 “In The Beginning . . . “ (Chapter 4)

“Humans have always been looking for a way home. For a way to connect with our Higher Consciousness. For a way to reconnect with our creator. Throughout human history, human beings have used temporary artificial means to raise their vibrational level, to try to reconnect with Higher Consciousness.

Drugs and alcohol, meditation and exercise, sex and religion, starvation and overeating, the self-torture of the flagellant or the deprivation of the hermit – all are attempts to connect with higher consciousness. Attempts to reconnect with Spiritual Self. Attempts to go home.”

Part of the reason that I have had trouble in writing this column is because of the intellectual context I was approaching it from. I was thinking that I had to know what I was talking about, had to be able to communicate to you the Truth about Love. That was pretty silly of me.* Love is what I am learning about. Love is what recovery and healing are all about. Love is the goal. Love is home.

*[Actually, it was my disease at work – causing me to judge and shame myself for not feeling competent to write about the True Nature of Love. This disease of codependence is so incredibly insidious, treacherous, and powerful. It continually turns back in on itself. The disease doesn’t want me to take the risk of Loving and trusting my self and then it turns around and causes me to judge myself because I don’t Love my self. I don’t Love myself because of the disease – the ego programming that is a result of being wounded and traumatized by being Spiritually orphaned in an alien environment. By being born into and raised in an emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional, Spiritually hostile, shame based, Love mutilated (mutilate – 1. To deprive of a limb or essential part. 2. To damage or injure by the removal of an important part.) civilization on a planet where civilized societies have evolved based on the belief in separation and fear-based hostility – separation between beings, separation between humans and their environment, and separation between the flesh and the Spirit. The civilization I was raised in is so sick and twisted that it took the teachings of the Master Teacher who came into body to teach us about Love and twisted those teachings into something shameful and hate-filled. Jesus Christ carried a message of Love – not shame and judgment.]

“Due to the planetary conditions, the human ego developed a belief in separation – which is what made violence possible and caused the human condition as we inherited it. The reflection of that human condition on the individual level is the disease of Codependence. Codependence is caused by the ego being traumatized and programed in early childhood so that our relationship with ourselves and the God-Force is dysfunctional – that is, it does not work to help us access the Truth of ONENESS and Love. It is through healing our relationship with ourselves that we open our inner channel and start tuning into the Truth.” – Jesus & Christ Consciousness

Now what I thought last month was going to be one column about the True Nature of Love has turned into at least a 4 part series. In dealing with the shame I was feeling about not knowing enough about Love to write about it’s True Nature, I have in fact been processing through that shame to get to a place where I can be free to write about the type of Love that can set me Free. So, I will save “Love as a vibrational frequency” and “Love and romance” for future columns.

I have only a little experience with feeling Love that sets me Free – and that has come primarily since I have been in recovery. In those moments when I am able to connect with Love in it’s True form, then I feel that all of the pain and suffering has been worth the experience. Then I get a taste of what home really feels like. Then I get to feel the Joy and Truth and Love that Truly does set me Free from the illusion of separation. In those moments, I can sometimes even feel grateful for that illusion. Because without the illusion of separation from The Source Energy, from Love – I would never have gotten the opportunity to experience Love.

I am going to end this column with a continuation of the quote from my book “The Dance of Wounded Souls” which I started it with. This quote is from the very end of my book. This is my intuitive Truth. This is an important part of the understanding which has led to the beginning of my liberation from the shame. This Truth has helped me to start Loving myself a little bit – to start Loving myself enough to be Free to start believing that maybe, just maybe I am Lovable and Loved.

“The Peace and Bliss of The Eternal Now is the True Absolute Reality of the God-Force.

The illusion of separation – the distance, the separation, between the peak and the valley – is what makes motion possible. Separation is necessary for energy to be in motion. The illusion of separation was necessary to create The Illusion.

As part of the ONENESS of ALL THAT IS, we are God and God is LOVE. We are part of the Truth of ONENESS vibrating at LOVE. As part of the ONENESS of LOVE we would never have been able to experience Love. It is kind of like, “If you are sugar then you never get to taste sugar.”

In God we are LOVE. Without the illusion of separation we would never have had the opportunity to experience Love. Would never have been able to Love and be Loved.

Separation was necessary to allow us the incredible gift of experiencing Love, of Loving and being Loved.

The Illusion that caused all of the pain is also the vehicle for allowing us to feel and be Loved.

If you pursue your path of healing, I think that you will find as I have that it is very much worth it. It is worth it to be able to experience Love.

This is the Age of Healing and Joy. It is time to start remembering who you Truly are, to start feeling and tuning into the Truth which exists within you.

We are all butterflies.

We are all swans.

We are Spiritual Beings.

The Springtime of the Spirit has arrived: It is possible to learn to Love yourself.

It is possible to be happy, Joyous, and free – if you are willing to be scared and hurt, angry and sad.

You are Lovable.

You are Loved.

You are LOVE.”

Robert Burney is a pioneer in the area of codependency recovery / inner child healing. His first book Codependence The Dance of Wounded Souls has been called “one of the truly transformational works of our time.”His website Joy2MeU.com offers over 200 pages of free original contenton codependency recovery, inner child healing, relationship dynamics, alcoholism/addiction, fear of intimacy, Twelve Step Spirituality, New Age Metaphysics, emotional abuse, setting boundaries, grief process, and much more.The Joy2MeU website is designed in an ancient design program which is not mobile friendly.A new site – joy2meu2.com – is a redesign of joy2meu.com in a mobile friendly format. The Joy2MeU2siteindex page that will help you to access most of his articles on mobile friendly sites (around 170.)

Articles 3 through 6 of this series are now exclusively available in the Dancing in Light pay to view component of Joy2MeU.com There are special offers for Dancing in Light and Joy2MeU Journal (where the Trilogy quoted can be accessed) subscription areas of Joy2MeU.

May 27th, 2017 – I have decided to cancel the planned trip to the UK for October.As we were closing in on finalizing the plans for my trip there, a major change took place in my life as I got custody of my 12 year old grandson.At first it wasn’t clear if he would be living with me in the fall or not, so I pushed the trip back from September to October based on the possibility that he would still be with me.Since then it has become clear that he will be living with me – and that taking an 8 or 10 day trip to UK would present significant challenges in getting taking care of him during that time covered.If we would have had people signing up for the retreat and putting down deposits in the over 2 weeks since we posted the page, that could have impacted this decision.But since no one has signed up, it seems as if it is part of the Divine Plan to go ahead with the cancelation. Hopefully we can make this trip to the UK happen at some point in the not too distant future.Maybe even next summer and I can bring my grandson along.

Robert Burney Trip to UK 2017

Robert Burney is an author, spiritual teacher and counselor. His first book “Codependence – The Dance of Wounded Souls” has been called “one of the truly transformational works of our time” and he has been referred to as “a metaphysical Stephen Hawking.” He is a counselor /coach and Spiritual Teacher whose work has been compared to John Bradshaw’s “except much more spiritual” and described as “taking inner child healing to a new level.” His book “The Dance” is an insightful, clearly written narrative that has helped countless people to understand and heal from the shortcomings of their relationships with self and others. Robert’s work resonates strongly with those that have been fortunate enough to come across it.

Codependency Recovery / Inner Child Healing Formula

A pioneer in the realm of codependency recovery and inner child healing, Robert discovered and developed a pioneering holistic approach to codependency recovery – an inner child healing paradigm – that offers a powerful, life changing formula for integrating Love, Spiritual Truth, and intellectual knowledge of healthy behavior into one’s emotional experience of life – a blueprint for individuals to transform their core relationship with self and life.

This blueprint can be invaluable to people just starting the recovery / healing process, and is often the missing piece that people who have been healing / recovering / on a spiritual path for decades have been seeking. What is unique about the approach is that all of the tools are brought together in a focused system for achieving integration and balance – and even someone who has a very good therapist (or is a very good therapist) right now, can still find it very beneficial to attend one of his workshops.

Creating the Possibility of bringing Robert Burney to the UK

Robert Burney

In order to share his experience, strength and hope – and teach others his integration formula – Robert has offered intensive workshops and retreats in the US, Canada, and twice on the Spanish Island of Ibiza, as well as on cruises in the Caribbean. In spite of having a healthy following in the United Kingdom Robert has not physically presented his work in a similar fashion.

Several years ago Angel Morrison (who had both attended a retreat in Ibiza and been on a cruise with Robert) suggested the idea of working to bring Robert Burney to the UK. Angel understood the importance of expanding the knowledge of Robert’s work. Rachel Hawadi who had read Robert’s work (and done phone counseling with him) agreed and the two agreed to volunteer and commit to making this a reality. This has then given birth to a Facebook Group which aims “To make the possibility of bringing Robert Burney to the UK” in 2017.

As of February 14th, 2017, initial plans are being formulated. The goal is to make this trip happen in September 2017. This page is being created to survey people who might be interested in meeting and/or attending an appearance by Robert, to ascertain what formats people would like to have available and where it would be best to offer these opportunities.

Location

It is assumed that London would be one of the locations – and both Birmingham and Nottingham have been proposed by people interested. Email us to let us know if you could attend in London or want to suggest another location in the UK.

Formats

In order to make the best use of Robert’s time the following mixture of sessions could be offered during the tour.

1 to 1 sessions: These could either be face to face/Telephone and Skype sessions for those in the UK. Depending on availability these can be 1 hour sessions. Given that the unique selling point of this tour is being able to see Robert face to face it would seem that a “face to face” would be the main offering.

Weekend Retreat: A residential retreat in a comfortable, peaceful setting starting on Friday with a 6:30 arrival, dinner and a session until 10 pm. An intensive session on Saturday which would end on Sunday around 4 pm. It would be important to ensure that those attending have excellent food and a general feeling of being cared for.

5-day Retreat: A transformative retreat for those needing a radical overhaul in a similar setting as the weekend retreat but going deeper with more workshops, 1 to 1 sessions. The setting will also be comfortable and nurturing. There should be an additional offering of holistic therapies e.g. massages, reflexology, yoga, deep breathing, walks etc.

1 day Intensive workshops: These would follow the exact same formats that have been offered and could be done both during the day or evening. More than likely, evening sessions could be more successful in London – although it would need to be for 3 evenings in order for Robert to teach the formula that he teaches in his Intensive Workshops. There might be a requirement to juggle between different towns in the UK.

Please send us some feedback so that we can ascertain the amount of interest and what people are interested in so that we can know if we can make this possibility manifest this year. Email us to let us know.

Here is some of the feedback from the Intensive Training Workshops / retreats that Robert has done in the past.

“I found this session to be very useful in seeing the what & the why of “my” reality.The understanding I have gained gives me hope in my future.This has been the greatest gift I have ever given myself.”

“I really enjoyed Robert Burney’s Intensive Training on inner child work. . .I had many revelations about my inner child and how I can reparent and stop the critical parent that has followed me my whole life. . . Thank you so much Robert.You are a truly unforgetable person. So glad I said yes to attending.”

“Exceptionally understandable; very clear.This was LIFE Changing – I am so thankful.I would Absolutely recommend it.”

“Robert Burney’s training day was so inspirational and enlightening. He was loving and warm and presented profound life changing material in a very not intimidating way. Magical!”

“My life has been much better since I went to your seminar.”

“Brilliant. Liberating. So profound it is sometimes ! hilarious I feel you completely get the dynamics of the human experience and the truth you teach can set people free.”

“It was very empowering, uplifting and gave me new hope. The information was invaluable.”

“Robert is a very , compassionate intuitive, and intelligent soul who shares his insights to you in such a clear, fun, and poignant way that your life will be forever changed.” – Testimonial Page for Robert Burney Seminar

The key to codependency recovery is the inner child healing work I describe on my site: A key element of that work includes learning to set internal boundaries.The formula that I pioneered for inner healing – which includes learning to set the internal boundaries –is something that I teach people through telephone counseling(It is now possible to get phone cards for very cheap rates from many places in the world – and also to use Skype for free from anywhere.)I talk about how the phone counseling can work to really change a persons life for the better in a short period of time on this page which includes some special combination offers.

Reading my book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls (links to all of my books in hard copy, ebook, and audiobook format are on that page – or you can get Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks through Amazon) would really help you take your understanding to a whole new level.Understanding codependency is vital in helping us to forgive our self for the dysfunctional ways we have lived our lives – it is not our fault we are codependent.

In the last few years I have also published two more books that can be very helpful. Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in The Light Book 1 Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace through Inner Child Healing and Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth.I have special offers for either or both of these books (or for all three of my books) on this page.

I also offer periodic day long workshops to teach people how to apply my inner child healing formula. (There is now a downloadable MP3 recording available of my Life Changing workshop – and I have a page with special offers for both the workshop recording and an MP3 download of Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls. )

Codependency causes us to feel like the victim of our own thoughts and feelings, and like our own worst enemy – recovery helps us to start learning how to be our own best friend.Getting into codependency recovery is an act of love for self.

“One of the false beliefs that it is important to let go of, is the belief that we need another person in our lives to make us whole. As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims.

A white knight is not going to come charging up to rescue us from the dragon. A princess is not going to kiss us and turn us from a frog into a prince. The Prince and the Princess and the Dragon are all within us. It is not about someone outside of us rescuing us. It is also not about some dragon outside of us blocking our path. As long as we are looking outside to become whole we are setting ourselves up to be victims. As long as we are looking outside for the villain we are buying into the belief that we are the victim.

As little kids we were victims and we need to heal those wounds. But as adults we are volunteers – victims only of our disease. The people in our lives are actors and actresses whom we cast in the roles that would recreate the childhood dynamics of abuse and abandonment, betrayal and deprivation.

We are/have been just as much perpetrators in our adult relationships as victims. Every victim is a perpetrator – because when we are buying into being the victim, when we are giving power to our disease, we are perpetrating on the people around us and on ourselves.

We need to heal the wounds without blaming others. And we need to own the responsibility without blaming ourselves. As was stated earlier – there is no blame here, there are no bad guys. The only villain here is the disease and it is within us.” – quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

I state in my book that codependence is a lousy word to describe the phenomena it has come to be associated with. A more accurate term would be outer or external dependence. We are programmed to give power over our sense of self worth – over how we feel about our self – to external sources and outside conditions.

Nowhere is the result of this programming more disastrous on a personal level than in the area of romantic relationships. Our subconscious and emotional programming started with fairy tales that taught us that when we meet our prince or princess we will live happily-ever-after. Movies and books and songs reinforced the original programming that in order to be whole and happy we must be in a relationship.

The result of this programming is that we are set up to feel like failures in romantic relationships. When we give power over how we feel about our self to another person in a romantic relationship we are practicing toxic love – making the other person our drug of choice, our higher power.

A healthy romantic relationship is an interdependent relationship – not a codependent one. An interdependent relationship is one where two people who have a healthy sense of Self worth, choose to become partners, to form a union. Two whole individuals – or more accurately (since as I have stated, we are all wounded and learning to access a True sense of self/Self worth) two people who are in recovery from their codependency working on owning their inherent worth and wholeness as beings, working on learning to be emotionally healthy and honest – who form an alliance / partnership with each other, not two half people who come together to feel whole.

In a healthy interdependent relationship as I mentioned in Chapter 9, we give the other person some power over our feelings – not over our self worth. Giving another person some power over our feelings is a completely different thing than giving them power over our self worth.

When we choose to give power away over our feelings we give the other person the power to help us feel happy. That also means we are giving them the power to hurt us. Caring for anyone or anything means we have an emotional investment in our relationship with that person or thing. To emotionally invest in a relationship is to take the risk of getting hurt – of getting our hearts broken – if we lose that relationship.

But it is not having our heart broken – it is not pure grief / emotional pain – that can be so debilitating, paralyzing, and agonizing when a relationship ends. It is the loss of self worth that we feel – the level to which we have invested, are dependent upon, the relationship to feel good about ourselves – that causes us to feel like we are going to die, that can make us feel like we want to die. The blame and shame and judgment caused by our codependency creates artificial feelings of inadequacy, of trauma, of agony. The unresolved abandonment / rejection / betrayal issues from our childhood are triggered and throw us into a place where we feel the hopelessness and powerlessness that we felt as a child.

The critical parent disease voice – old tapes / subconscious and conscious intellectual ego programming – tells us what losers and failures we are. The wounded inner child places react out of pain and shame from our childhood – the places within us where we feel unlovable and defective. We blame ourselves for the relationship ending with codependent messages like: if only I had not said that; I should have done that; I will never have a good relationship; I will always be alone; etc. Or we go to the other extreme and try to blame it all on the other person. People stalk and murder ex lovers because of the blow they feel they have suffered to their self worth – because they feel they have lost the source / drug that was making life bearable.

Getting our hearts broken is a normal and natural part of life. Blaming our self or the other person is codependency. The emotional pain of a heart break is very painful, but it gets better over time. The blame and shame of codependency causes us to be bitter and resentful, causes us to avoid relationships or to pick another person who will recreate our wounds – another person to try to fill the hole we feel inside of our self.

“Loving and losing is better than never loving” when all we experience is a broken heart. It is the blame and shame of the disease that makes us feel like failures who are incapable of loving – like a victim of our own unworthiness.

At the end of 1998, when I had reached a place in my recovery where I was secure in my self/Self worth, the Universe presented me with an opportunity to experience a romantic relationship in which my worst fear of rejection seemed to manifest – and I did not blame her or me. It was an incredible experience – very painful, but also very liberating.

“It Truly is a completely different experience to have a relationship where my self-worth is not at risk . . . . . if my self-worth is not at risk then another person can only add to me, they have no power to diminish me. What a gift.” – An Adventure in Romance – Loving and Losing Successfully

As that relationship was ending, before it ended, I wrote what I think is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever written which I mentioned in a previous chapter and will include as the next chapter. It is called: A Wedding Prayer /Meditation on Romantic Commitment.

“You are not the source of each other’s Love. You are helping each other to access the LOVE that is the Source.

The Love that you see when you see your soul in the others eyes is a reflection of the LOVE that you are. Of the Unconditional Love that the Great Spirit feels for you.

It is very important to remember that the other person is helping you to access God’s LOVE within you – not giving you something that you have never had before.” – Chapter 20 A Wedding Prayer / Meditation on Romantic Commitment

Anytime we see another person as our source of love, we will feel a need to control and manipulate that person to be what we want them to be – to be there for us to feed off of emotionally so we can feel good about our self. There is nothing Loving about using another person emotionally because we do not know how to feed ourselves by accessing the True Source.

Love can feel magical and wonderful – can help us feel like we are soaring as the other person helps us to access the higher vibrational frequencies of Love and Joy. To have the opportunity to experience Love is one of the major reasons we have come into human body – but thinking a romantic relationship is what give us worth is codependent and dysfunctional. Romantic relationships can be wonderful opportunities for growth and Spiritual Awakening when we start seeing them realistically, when we stop allowing the perspective of the magical thinking romantic within us to dictate our relationship with romance.

“You are not going to live happily-ever-after once you find your prince or princess. There is no happily-ever-after on this plane of existence. You may find your prince or princess but they will have issues to deal with. Relationships are something that needs to be worked on – not some magic wand that makes everybody happy.” – Chapter 9 Interdependent, not codependent”

If you live in Southern California and want to learn how to do relationships in a healthier way it would be really helpful for you to come to my Intensive Training Day workshop. If you are alone this Valentine’s Day, this workshop can help you understand your patterns and fear of intimacy so that you can make better choices the next time you venture into the Romantic Arena. If you are in a relationship and find your self having problems with communicating and reactions – then it would be very helpful for you to come to my workshop together.I have posted a page with special offers for my February 20th workshop.

I have special offers for Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth on this page. (which includes offers for my other books also.)

When you purchase Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional GrowthCodependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior through Joy2MeU you get a personally autographed copy;-) but you can also purchase through Amazon.com,Amazon.UK, or Barnes & Noble.

The Greatest Arena is also available as two ebooks (each only$9.95) eBook 1: Codependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior (the first 20 chapters of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazon, on Amazon UK, on Barnes & Noble, or in Kobo format.

Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth eBook 2: Deeper Within (emotionally) & Further Out (metaphysically) From Fear of Intimacy to Twin Souls (chapters 21 through 40 of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazon and Amazon UK, on Barnes & Noble, or in Kobo format.

Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth eBook 1: Codependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior now also available as an audio book on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

December 10th, 2015 – someone made a comment on this blog that I published 6 months ago while I was out of town over the weekend and I decided to post it again. It is good stuff.

Emotional pain, feeling hurt, is an inevitable part of this human experience we are having – just as loss and grief are unavoidable parts of life. There is no happily ever after when we find our Prince or Princess, when we do life “right.” Judging and shaming our self for having been hurt is part of the inner war that is codependency.

“The dysfunctional dance of Codependence is caused by being at war with ourselves – being at war within.

We are at war with ourselves because we are judging and shaming ourselves for being human. We are at war with ourselves because we are carrying around suppressed grief energy that we are terrified of feeling. We are at war within because we are “damming” our own emotional process – because we were forced to become emotionally dishonest as children and had to learn ways to block and distort our emotional energy.

We cannot learn to Love ourselves and be at peace within until we stop judging and shaming ourselves for being human and stop fighting our own emotional process, until we stop waging war on ourselves.” – Quotations in this color are fromCodependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

I realized in my codependency recovery that getting hurt was not the biggest problem for me – it was the way I beat myself up, and blamed myself, when I got hurt that felt unbearable. Judging and shaming myself for the pain and heartbreak I experienced caused me to live a life of suffering.

“When I had first gotten sober, I had noticed a saying on some bumper stickers or wall hanging or someplace. That saying was “The pain is mandatory, the suffering is optional.” What I was really beginning to realize at this point in my process was that the suffering came about because of resistance to feeling the pain – and anger and fear. By changing my attitudes, I was changing my perspective and giving myself permission to feel the feelings. I was starting to allow them to flow instead of putting all my energy into damming them, suppressing them. That is where the suffering really comes from – denying my own emotional reality.” – Joy2MeU Journal – My Spiritual Path: 30 Days in the Desert – Falling Apart and Breaking Through II

I had to deny my own emotional reality in childhood because in my parents were my Higher Powers whom I was incapable of seeing as anything but perfect. I felt like it was my fault I was hurting, because something was inherently wrong with me. In my adult life I was still emotionally reacting to life out of the intellectual beliefs I had adapted in childhood – out of the interpretations of an immature egocentric mind. Until I started separating my adult perspective of reality from my childhood subconscious and emotional programming, I was incapable of having compassion for my own pain.

Until I started to learn discernment intellectually, I was set up to keep allowing my childhood experiences to dictate my relationships with life – and with love. In this quote from one of the articles in my Healthy Relationships series, I have done what I suggest in the article – that is, I have inserted “love” into the quote from my book everywhere it says “life.”

“We learned about life (love) as children and it is necessary to change the way we intellectually view life (love) in order to stop being the victim of the old tapes. By looking at, becoming conscious of, our attitudes, definitions, and perspectives, we can start discerning what works for us and what does not work. We can then start making choices about whether our intellectual view of life (love) is serving us – or if it is setting us up to be victims because we are expecting life (love) to be something which it is not.” – Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney

Consciousness raising is a process of enlarging the intellectual paradigm which we base our relationship with life upon. As I have stated previously in this series, our beliefs, attitudes, and definitions determine our expectations and perspectives – which in turn dictate our emotional relationships to everything and everyone in our environment. And when I say everything, I am not just talking about objects. Everything includes ideas, concepts, opinions, etc.

In order to have healthier romantic relationships it is very important to examine our concept of romantic love. If we do not have a healthy concept – realistic definitions and beliefs about – romantic love, then we do not have much chance of having a healthy relationship. If our concept of romance is based on the fairy tales and books, songs and movies, from our childhoods, then we are set up to be disappointed in our romantic relationships.

Read the quotation above and substitute “love” everywhere it says “life” and you might better understand why you have felt like a victim in romantic relationships. We were set up to be victims in romance because we were taught that it is a magical paradise where we will have all of our needs met – and live “Happily ever after”. We were taught that getting the romance was the goal and that after that everything was smooth sailing.” – Healthy Relationships – Part 6, Romantic Love as a Concept

As long as I saw love / life as a black and white test of my worth, as a competition that could be won or lost – with winning taking me to happily ever after and losing causing me to judge myself as unlovable because of my hurt and heartbreak – I was not only incapable of loving and allowing myself to be loved, I was incapable of really living.

Living our life trying to avoid getting hurt keeps us from Truly being alive. It is Truly better to love and lose than to never love – but until I started changing the programming that told me I wasn’t lovable I was powerless over my patterns. I was unable to be discerning in the choices I made about who to get involved with because of my codependency. I was incapable of really receiving love because I did not believe I was lovable at the core of my relationship with myself.

My ego interpreted emotional pain in childhood as a threat to survival, and adapted a defense system to try to protect me from being hurt emotionally. That defense system – my codependency – does not want me to relax and be in the moment, because then I might get hurt. It does not want me to take risks, to venture into the unknown. In one of the first installments of my personal journal in the Joy2MeU Journal, I shared part of an email I had written to a friend about how important it was for me to start learning how to take power away from the old tapes – from the codependent programming that had been running my life.

“. . . . . . A client was admiring the bouquet of flowers that I had in my office and I told her the story of why I often buy flowers for my office. About two years ago I did a workshop at a church in the San Fernando Valley on a Sunday afternoon. When I was packing my stuff up getting ready to leave they gave me the flower arrangement from the Sunday service. I didn’t want it. I watched my reaction – which was I didn’t want the flowers – and the thought that I saw pass through my mind was “Why do I want those flowers, they will just die.” I immediately recognized that for what it was, an old tape. When I discover old tapes dictating my reactions I need to do something to counter them – so I started buying flowers to put in my office.

Why have flowers when they are just going to die? . . . . . .

Why take a risk if I will fail?

Why open up to Love if I am just going to get hurt?

Boy is that my old stuff! – my disease talking.

I don’t remember if you ever heard me give my talk before it became a book – but I used to always end my talk with quoting the words to a song that was perfect for ending the talk. I couldn’t use it in the book because they wouldn’t give me copyright permission. The song was The Rose.

“Some say Love it is a river that drowns the tender reed,
Some say Love it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say Love it is a hunger – an endless aching need …
I say Love it is a flower – and you it’s only seed.

(This next part is the part that really speaks to me of the way that I lived most of my life)
It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance,
It’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes a chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken that never learns to give,
It’s the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long,
and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong.

Just remember in the winter far beneath the winter snow,
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes the Rose”

So once more I get to work on countering all the old tapes and all the seemingly concrete evidence to the contrary and tell myself that: YES :

It is better to Love and lose than never Love,

it is better to have flowers that are beautiful for a few days than not to enjoy the flowers. . . . .” – Joy2MeU Journal The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul My Unfolding Process – Dance 2 July 1999

As long as I was not in recovery from codependency I was trying to avoid being hurt by not taking the chance of opening up to someone who was available to love me. This was my codependency’s way of trying to keep my shameful, defective being a secret. In my unconscious codependent defense system this translated behaviorally into being attracted to women who were unavailable so that I could blame them. Thus my attempts to have a relationship became self fulfilling prophecies – repeating behavior patterns. Having my heart broken meant that either I was a loser or it was the other person’s fault – so I needed to blame it on her to keep from falling into the bottomless abyss of pain and shame within me.

The ridiculous thing about this, one of the things that makes codependency such a stupid, dysfunctional defense system, is that feeling rejected by anyone could throw me into that abyss.

“It is a defense adapted by my ego in an attempt to keep me from opening my heart so that it can be broken again. If my heart is broken again, I have to make it your fault because the only other option in a polarized perspective of life is to admit that I am to blame. To blame myself is to plunge into the abyss of pain and shame at the core of my being – the unendurable, hopeless, want to die, place within me where I feel shamefully unlovable and unworthy.

This is the behavior that I was powerless to change until I started to get emotionally honest with myself. The intellectual and emotional programming from my childhood set me up to be incapable of having a healthy intimate relationship.

Codependency is very dysfunctional. It hurts just as much to be rejected by an unavailable person as by an available one. As long as we are reacting out of our inner child wounds, we will take any perceived rejection as personal – as a reflection of our shameful defectiveness.

Until I started to consciously work on changing the ego programming which was keeping me in denial and emotional dishonesty, I was unable to change my core relationship with self – I was unable to see through the false self image, was unable to see my self with any clarity.” – Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Chapter 4: False Self Image

There is nothing we humans beings want more than to feel Loved – in my opinion.

“On one of my web pages I state that romantic relationships are the greatest arena for Spiritual growth available to us. I believe that this is the Truth because it is the area that is most important to us. Recently I saw a communication from the Dalai Lama in which he stated a very simple Truth: we all want to the same thing, to be happy and feel Loved. I would simplify that even further to say: feeling Loved makes us happy – so ultimately we all want the same thing, to feel Loved.” – Healthy Relationships – Part 5, Healthy Joyous Sexuality

This is a reflection of our desire to return home to LOVE – to reconnect with our Source. On a human level it manifests as a desire to feel Loved by other human beings – and especially to feel Loved by one other human being in a romantic relationship, in a relationship that includes physical union.

“Everything on the physical plane is a reflection of other levels. Ultimately, the strong sexual and sensual desires of human beings really have very little to do with the actual physical act of sex – the True compulsion to unite is about our wounded souls, about our endless, aching need to go home to the God/Goddess Energy. We want to reunite in ONENESS – in LOVE – because that is our True home.” – Jesus & Mary Magdalene – Jesus, sexuality, & the bible

Our codependent programming causes us to believe that love has to come from external sources and validation. That feeling loved by another person will fill the hole in our soul. It cannot. When we think another person is the source of love for us, then we are making that other person our higher power.

I believe that the great quest for all of us old souls who are doing this healing is to feel Loved. Before we are open to that however, we need to heal our relationship with ourselves enough to start believing that we deserve Love. Doing the inner child healing work is an act of Love that is a Loving thing to do for our self.

As long as we are looking for that Love externally, we are looking for love in all the wrong faces and wrong places. That doesn’t mean that another person can’t help us access that Love – what it means is that it is important to remember that the Source of that Love is accessed internally, not found externally.

“You are together because you resonate on the same wave lengths, you fit together vibrationally, in such a way that together you form a powerful energy field that helps both of you access the Higher Vibrational Energy of Love, Joy, Light, and Truth – in a way that would be very difficult for either one of you to do by yourself. You are coming together to touch the face of God. You are uniting your energies to help you access the Love of the Holy Mother Source Energy.

You are not the source of each other’s Love. You are helping each other to access the LOVE that is the Source.

If we are not open to accessing Love internally – through our Spirit – then we will not be able to take in and hold love coming from another person. We won’t feel like we deserve it on a gut level – so we will sabotage it in some way.” – Joy2MeU Update Newsletter 2 June 2003

The Update Newsletters I used to write regularly are often very long and contain a lot of really valuable information about the recovery process as I share my processing through my issues. This is taken from the second page of the Newsletter portion of the June 2003 Update. (the sharing there starts off with The Road gets Narrower – and begins a discusses about being alone and loneliness that continues in Newsletter Discernment Part 1)

This excerpt is actually less than half of that Newsletter 2 page – the page continues with My Terror of Intimacy about 1/3 of the way down the page.

Joy2MeU Journal

There are two quotes in this excerpt from The Joy2MeU Journal. The Joy2MeU Journal is “a body of work in a password protected part of the site where Robert is publishing the story of his Spiritual Path (11 part), a ongoing personal recovery journal (58 installments), and portions of his Trilogy (14 Chapters of a Magical, Mystical, Spiritual Fable) and Attack on America (11 Chapters) books not available on regular Joy2MeU site.

Also quoted is Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the LightBook 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life – which is part of Dancing in Light another subscription area of the site that includes “some of the most sophisticated of my writings – dealing with very advanced levels of recovery and some revolutionary and controversial perspectives on metaphysics, spirituality, and enlightenment.”

Special offers for either / or both subscription areas of my site are on the special sale page.

““It is through healing our inner child, our inner children, by grieving the wounds that we suffered, that we can change our behavior pattern

That does not mean that the wounds will ever be completely healed.There will always be a tender spot, a painful place within us due to the experiences that we have had.What it does mean is that we can take the power away from those wounds. By bringing them out of the darkness into the Light, by releasing the energy, we can heal them enough so that they do not have the power to dictate how we live our lives today.We can heal them enough to change the quality of our lives dramatically.We can heal them enough to Truly be happy, Joyous and free in the moment most of the time.” – quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

A healthy romantic relationship is about two whole, independent people choosing to become partners in the life journey for as long as that works for both of them.This is, of course, a theoretical concept.Because of the cultural dysfunction and emotional trauma all of us have experienced due to the human condition, we are never, in this lifetime, going to be a completely healthy person with no emotional wounds – and we are never going to meet someone else that has no emotional wounds.

The goal is to be in the process of healing and to choose a partner who is also in the process of healing.Then we have the opportunity to achieve some True emotional intimacy and to have some companionship on our journey.The person who can support us in our journey is also going to be the teacher we need to push our buttons so that we can bring to Light the emotional wounds that need to be healed and the subconscious programming that needs to be changed.

If we expect a romantic relationship to “fix” us so that we can live happily-ever-after then we are setting ourselves up to be victims.If we define a successful relationship as one that lasts forever and meets all of our needs then we will end up blaming ourselves or the other person when that insane expectation is not met. (That a relationship could last for the rest of our lives is not an insane expectation – that someone else can meet all of our needs, all of the time, is – but if we believe that longevity is the only way a relationship can be successful we are setting ourselves up to sabotage the relationship and not appreciate the gifts we are receiving in the now.)

It is vitally important to make healing and Spiritual growth our number one priority so that we can look to the other person for help and support – not expect them to rescue us and give us self worth.Healing is an inside job. My issues are my responsibility to work through, it is not the other persons job to compromise her self to accommodate my fears and insecurities.If I am choosing wisely when I enter into a relationship then I will choose someone who will be compassionate, patient, and supportive of me while I work through my issues.

And no matter how wisely I choose, or how much healing and recovery the other person has had, she will still be a human being with her own issues to work through so she will not always be able to be compassionate, patient, and supportive.For one person to expect another to always be there for them, to always have the space and time to be available to us, is an insane expectation.

We do want to choose someone who is willing to work through issues.When another person is willing to do the work with us, a relationship can be an incredibly nurturing, magical space to explore what True Love means – some of the time.It can not be that all of the time.There might be periods of time – days, weeks, even months – where things are going beautifully and it feels like we may have reached happily-ever-after.But then things will change and get different.That is how the life process works – it will not be someone’s fault.It will be a new opportunity for growth for both people.

Two people who are working through their issues and are willing to do the grief work, can turn an argument about some stupid, mundane life event into some mutual deep grieving.That is True emotional intimacy.

When we are willing to own our power to be the neutral observer who can see our responsibility in whatever is happening without shame and judgment, and can also have the courage and willingness to hold the other person responsible for their behavior without shame and judgment – then the magic can really happen.

Two people who have negotiated some guidelines to help them in times when they are vulnerable and reactive – can transform an argument about some symptom into an opportunity to heal some core wounding.

The way that can look is:an argument/disagreement starts about some behavior that is upsetting (someone is late, or forgets something that is important to the other, or says something in an insensitive way, etc.);at some point one of the individuals says “Time out.I think I might be reacting to some old stuff.”;The other person backs off the argument enough to say “How old are you feeling?”;etc.Two people who have created the space to do this can then get down to the cause underneath the reaction, which might be something like:one person is reacting out of the child inside who never felt important, respected, or heard – while the other person is reacting out of the inner child who was always being criticized and given the message that there was something wrong with them.At that point, they are dealing with the core cause of the reaction not the symptomatic behavior.They can achieve a place of True emotional honesty and intimacy where they can get in touch with their individual wounds and grieve together.That is the kind of emotional intimacy which can form a very deep bond and be Joyously healing for both people.

To be willing to be conscious and emotionally honest with ourselves is a courageous act of faith that will allow us to progressively increase the number of moments in each day that we have the ability and freedom to be happy and Joyous in the now.To find another being who is willing to join us in this adventure, and to explore True emotional intimacy with us, is a priceless gift to be cherished and treasured.” – Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth Chapter 12 – Partners in the Journey

If you live in Southern California and want to learn how to do relationships in a healthier way it would be really helpful for you to come to my Intensive Training Day workshop. If you are alone this Valentine’s Day, this workshop can help you understand your patterns and fear of intimacy so that you can make better choices the next time you venture into the Romantic Arena. If you are in a relationship and find your self having problems with communicating and reactions – then it would be very helpful for you to come to my workshop together.I have posted a page with special offers for my February 15th workshop.

I have special offers for Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth on this page. (which includes offers for my other books also.)

When you purchase Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional GrowthCodependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior through Joy2MeU you get a personally autographed copy;-) but you can also purchase through Amazon.com and Amazon.UK.

The Greatest Arena is also available as two ebooks (each only$9.95) eBook 1: Codependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior (the first 20 chapters of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazonand on Amazon UK.

Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth eBook 2: Deeper Within (emotionally) & Further Out (metaphysically) From Fear of Intimacy to Twin Souls (chapters 21 through 40 of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazon and Amazon UK.

““One of the core characteristics of this disease of Codependence is intellectual polarization – black and white thinking.Rigid extremes – good or bad, right or wrong, love it or leave it, one or ten.Codependence does not allow any gray area – only black and white extremes.

Life is not black and white.Life involves the interplay of black and white.In other words, the gray area is where life takes place.A big part of the healing process is learning the numbers two through nine – recognizing that life is not black and white.”

“If we are reacting out of what our emotional truth was when we were five or nine or fourteen, then we are not capable of responding appropriately to what is happening in the moment; we are not being in the now.”– quotes in this color are fromCodependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

I heard someone at a CoDA meeting this week talk about a truly revolutionary concept that their codependence counselor introduced into a session with her and her husband one day.She and her husband were in a hot and heavy argument when the counselor interrupted to ask, “Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right.”She said that it was a question that they had to consider for a while because being right was awful important to them both.

It is normal for relationships in this society to deteriorate into power struggles over who is right and who is wrong.That is because we grew up in a dysfunctional society that taught that it was shameful to be wrong.We got the message that our self-worth depends on not making mistakes, on being perfect – that it caused our parents great emotional pain (or they caused us great emotional or physical pain) when we made a mistake, when we were wrong.

Codependence is an emotional defense system that is set up to protect the wounded inner child within us from the shame of being exposed as unlovable and unworthy, as stupid and weak, as a loser and failure, as whatever it was that we got the message was the worst thing to be. We were taught to evaluate whether we had worth in comparison to others. Smarter than, prettier than, faster than, richer than, more successful than, thinner than, stronger than, etc., etc. In a codependent society the only way to feel good about self is to look down on someone else.So we learned to judge (just like our role models did) others in order to feel good about ourselves.Being “right” was one of the most important ways to know that we had worth.

When a codependent feels attacked – which is any time it seems as if someone is judging us – it can be with a look or a tone of voice or just that someone doesn’t say something, let alone when someone actually says something to us that could be interpreted as meaning that we weren’t doing something right – the choices we are faced with are to blame them or blame ourselves. Either they are right – in which case it proves that we are the stupid loser that the critical parent voice in our head tells us we are – or they are wrong in which case it is time to attack them and prove to them the error of their ways.

In most relationships where the people have been together for a few years they have already established entrenched battle lines around painful emotional scars where they push each others buttons.All one person has to do is use a certain tone of voice or have a certain look on their face and the other person pulls out and loads the big guns.One person is readying their answer in their head to what they “know” the other is going to say before the other even has a chance to say it. The battle begins and neither one of them actually listens to what the other is saying.They start pulling out their lists of past hurts to prove their point of how the other is “doing” horrible things to them.The battle is on to see who is right and who is wrong.

And that is not even the right question.

The type of questions we need to be asking are: “What button just got pushed?”“Why am I reacting so strongly to this?”“How old do I feel right now?”“In what way does what is happening feel like something that happened in my childhood”“How does this remind me of the way my paents acted or treated me?”

We attract into our lives those people who will perfectly push our buttons for us.Who fit our particular issues exactly.When we are looking at life as a growth process then we can learn from these lessons.If both people in a relationship are willing to look at what is underneath the dynamics that are happening – then some magical, wonderful intimacy can result.As long as we are reacting unconsciously to the past, then we will blame and argue about who is right and who is wrong.

I have special offers for Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth on this page. (which includes offers for my other books also.)

When you purchase Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional GrowthCodependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior through Joy2MeU you get a personally autographed copy;-) but you can also purchase through Amazon.com and Amazon.UK.

The Greatest Arena is also available as two ebooks (each only$9.95) eBook 1: Codependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics & Healthy Relationship Behavior (the first 20 chapters of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazonand on Amazon UK.

Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual & Emotional Growth eBook 2: Deeper Within (emotionally) & Further Out (metaphysically) From Fear of Intimacy to Twin Souls (chapters 21 through 40 of The Greatest Arena) is available on Amazon and Amazon UK.